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^tofiam Lincoln 



Vice-President Fairbanks, 



Lincoln Day Banquet, Union League of Maryland 
and the Young Men's Republican Club, 



Baltimore, Md., 



February 12, 1907. 



L. G. Dynes Printing Co. 
Indianapolis 



Gltt 



ADDRESS OF CHARLES W. FAIRBANKS 



Mr. Toastmaster and Gentlemen: The theme 
which engages our attention tonight is no new one. 
Indeed, during two score years it has been more in 
the hearts and upon the tongues of our countrymen 
than any other. It has been the attractive subject 
of the poet, the painter, the sculptor, the historian 
and the orator. It has been woven into the immortal 
story of our national progress. We have become 
familiar with every phase and feature of his life 
and character and we do not grow weary with its 
frequent contemplation. While the story is, indeed, 
as familiar as a household word, we delight in the 
retelling of it. 

It is a reassuring fact that our countrymen gen- 
erally give themselves over to an appropriate 
observance of this day, for it is ineed, a holy day in 
our history. It is a day in which the American peo- 
ple may bathe their souls in the atmosphere of a 
higher and better patriotism. The name of Lincoln 
rests upon our land as a sweet benediction. 

Baltimore was not always so hospitable to the 
name of Abraham Lincoln as she is to-day. When 
the great Emancipator went to Washington to 
assume the grave responsibilities of his high office, 
the plans of his journey were concealed from this 
great city. But what a mighty change since then! 
There were those here who then greatly misjudged 
him, and how greatly he was misjudged. To-day 
there is no place within the limits of our beloved 
Republic where the name of Lincoln is more 



revered or where it will be more secure than in 
the generous and patriotic hearts of the people of 
Baltimore, and their children forever and forever. 

Abraham Lincoln was in the truest and best 
sense a man of the people. His sympathies were as 
broad as the needs of humanity. He was born and 
tutored amidst those hard conditions which develop 
that which is noblest and best in the human heart. 
From the humblest station he rose to the highest 
place among men. His birth was not heralded by 
pomp and ceremony. The entire world mourned at 
his bier. He had a high conception of public duty. 
He sought to exalt his fellow men, to strengthen 
the foundations of American institutions. He was 
inspired neither by the spirit of vain glory nor by 
mere thought of self. He never wavered in his 
allegiance to duty — duty to country, duty to human- 
ity and duty to the ever living God. He set an 
example of loyal unselfish devotion to his fellow 
men that is unsurpassed in all the ample history 
with which we are familiar. 

What a brave and gentle spirit! Great in its 
modesty and modest in its greatness! He left it to 
others to proclaim his virtues. His mighty deeds 
were their own herald. 

He loved liberty and so loved it that he wished 
that all men might be free. He loved the American 
flag and so loved it that he wished that no stain 
should rest upon it and that all of the children of 
men might stand upright in the enjoyment of the 
priceless jewel of freedom. He comprehended 
within the ample scope of his purpose freedom to 
all, irrespective of race and condition. 

What a mighty impulse there is in the power of 
a great and good name. The name of Lincoln will 
continue an uplifting influence, a power for good 
for centuries to come. If in all of our splendid his- 
tory we had done no more than give to the future 

4 



the name of Lincoln, we would be entitled to the 
undying gratitude of those who shall come after 
us. In the contemplation of his career, eulogy 
becomes mere commonplace. We confess our inabil- 
ity accurately to portray this historicv figure; his- 
toric, yet his influence so pervades our atmosphere 
that it almost seems as though he were yet alive 
and a potent figure in our midst. More than forty 
years have come and gone since his great work 
closed, yet he stands before us as vividly as though 
still clothed with his mighty power. 

He was a partisan because he knew that bene- 
ficient ends could be accomplished through the 
instrumentality of party and not otherwise. He was 
elevated to place and power by the divided judg- 
ment of the American people but all parties and 
all peoples now claim him as their own, for all see 
in the tragic events through which he passed and 
of which he was a part the guiding hand of an over- 
mastering Providence. In a large sense he was not 
the instrument of men. As we recede from the day 
in which he lived and wrought, his name does not 
diminish. It but grows greater and brighter in the 
receding years and stands in full and everlasting 
fellowship as one of Ame;'rica's great trinity of 
Liberators, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln 
and William McKinley. 

Lincoln laid down the Golden Rule of American 
politics, the rule he professed and the rule he prac- 
ticed, the rule of which he was, indeed, the perfect 
incarnation — Malice towards none; charity for all. 
This was a good code then; it is good now and 
should guide us in the future. There never was an 
hour when observance of it was more essential than 
in the present. By it men should be governed in all 
of their relations with each other, particularly in 
the consideration and determination of those great 
problems which lie at the foundation of social and 

6 



national progress. In the face of questions which 
make for the weal or woe of a great people, we 
should bury forever those small non-essential dif- 
ferences which merely tend to vex and weaken the 
great army of th<? people in their contest for the 
triumph of justice and the victory of right. 

Lincoln had a fixed, unchanging faith in the vir- 
tue of our political institutions. He believed them 
to be the best hope of mankind and felt that their 
destruction meant to blot out the last real assurance 
of liberty among men. He looked upon slavery 
with dread, not only because it was a monstrous 
wrong but because it imperilled the Republic. With 
true prophetic genius he declared : "A house divided 
against itself can not stand. I believe this govern- 
ment can not permanently endure half slave and 
half free." This utterance aroused the nation to her 
supreme peril and marked the real beginning of 
the debate which was decided upon the battle fields 
of the Republic. 

He was compelled to walk in new and untried 
paths, beset with countless dangers. No one had 
theretofore gone his way. No one but a strong 
man, a man of faith and power and spotless purpose 
could have carried the country so safely through 
the dangers which beset her, as did he. 

He was as "patient as destiny." He was neither 
moved by those who would go too fast nor deterred 
by those who would not go at all. He foresaw with 
rare precision the appropriate hour and struck when 
it arrived. He had superb faith in the triumph of 
his cause. He knew that slavery must perish or the 
Republic die and he believed that the Republic 
was immortal. 

He was a Christian, though not a professor of 
the Christian religion. When the hour was dark- 
est he sought the ever-lasting throne for strength 
and guidance. He believed in an overruling Provi- 
dence in the affairs of the great Republic. 



He chose with rare discrimination men suited to 
the arduous work in the Cabinet and in the field. 
He did not hesitate to call about him the nation's 
greatest, lest they should over-shadow him. Around 
his council table sat men who would worthily have 
filled the chief executive chair, and the captains he 
selected to lead our armies to ultimate victory rank 
among the greatest military heroes the world has 
produced. There were some who were called into 
his counsel who felt that they were more than a 
match for their chief and they sought to lead. They 
soon found that the plain citizen from the west was, 
not alone by reason of his place but by virtue of 
his own inherent worth, the undisputed head of his 
own administration ; that he possessed all the quali- 
ties of a successful executive; that he was a con- 
summate master of diplomacy; that he was, in 
short a statesman in the highest and best sense. 

There was never an hour in all of his matchless 
career when he was not both trusted and distrusted. 
Few men in American politics were ever more 
sharply criticised and more cruelly impeached than 
he. "Criticism" is indeed too polite a word. "Abuse" 
is more appropriate. His ability and his patriotic 
purpose were alike frequently challenged. His de- 
tractors are now forgotten and his figure has risen 
into historic proportions. It was only when his last 
hour had come that his defamers disappeared and 
all people comprehended his disinterested enlight- 
ened and patriotic purposes, but at all times the 
great body of his countrymen believed in, trusted 
and followed him. 

Many of the problems with which Abraham 
Lincoln was obliged to deal, have been solved and 
their solution has the approving verdict of his- 
tory. Each day brings its questions and its respon- 
sibilities. They will be solved as Lincoln solved his 
by bringing to their consideration patience, patriotic 



purpose and an enlightened judgment. The prin- 
ciples of righteousness and justice are as changeless 
as the unchanging stars. Difficulties may arise 
which for the moment seem to overtax our capacity, 
but if we bring to their consideration the unweary- 
ing patience, that sublime faith in the ultimate tri- 
umph of truth over error which inspired Abraham 
Lincoln, that solution will be attained which is in 
harmony with the principles which lie at the foun- 
dation of American institutions. 

Lincoln believed in the supremacy of the law — 
the law enacted by the chosen agents of a self-gov- 
erning people, law born of liberty. He taught men 
that ultimate security rests in the observance of 
each other's rights. In the midst of the storm he 
was calm and moved forward Avith serene unclouded 
vision to the accomplishment of his great pur- 
pose. He taught the lesson exemplified in his own 
career that in America opportunity invites the 
humblest and that place and power are open to the 
worthy, no matter where they have been cradled. 

In hours of doubt and uncertainty in the course 
of our national career we may turn to the life and 
services of Abraham Lincoln for inspiration. We 
find it in all an illustration of the fact that men 
honor most those who best serve their fellow men 
and who seek to exalt their day and generation. 
Abraham Lincoln stood for America, America uni- 
fied in law and solidified in sentiment, in interest, in 
aspiration. He stood for all sections and for all con- 
ditions of men. He cherished in his heart neither 
hate nor resentment. He struck, not in anger but 
in love ; to unify and not to destroy. He sought to 
hold within the sacred circle of American influence 
the entire people and the whole country. With 
prophetic vision he saw the future of America, how 
she was to become one of the greatest and the 
mightiest nations upon the globe, and that her true 



grandeur must be realized through the abolition of 
racial distinctions in the law and through the 
supremacy of the law, before which all men, created 
in the image of their Maker, should stand equal. 
The question uppermost in the days of Lincoln, 
uppermost to-day and which will be uppermost to- 
morrow, is the question of securing men everywhere 
in those rights which find their enunciation in the 
immortal Declaration of Independence. America has 
been and is and will be the land of opportunity, the 
land where the humblest among us, as well as the 
greatest, stand before the law upon a plane of 
absolute equality. Equality is the object for which 
our Republic was founded, for which untold thous- 
ands have gone down to the battle fields and won 
eternal glory. He stood always and everywhere for 
the rights of men. He stood for the rights of labor 
and for the rights of capital. He believed in those 
policies which gave to each the largest field of 
opportunity, believing full well that their interests 
were so co-related that they must, in the final an- 
alysis, stand or fall together. 

National unity for which Lincoln stood was 
established through sacrifices which no one but 
Omnipotence can measure. Great as they were, the 
end accomplished was worth the terrific cost. Not 
until the great question of national unity had been 
determined in the stern arbitrament of war did the 
American people arise to an adequate conception of 
the real virtue and tremendous strength of the 
great Republic. We rejoice as we contemplate the 
life and services of the great leader in a grave 
national emergency, that we have a country, not 
only one politically, but one in sentiment and 
destiny. Bitterness and distrust have disappeared 
and the millions of Americans rejoice in a common 
brotherhood and in their undivided and indivisible 
fealty to a common flag. 



Lincoln's great strength lay with the people. 
He trusted them and they believed in him. He 
would peril all for them and they would willingly 
place their all upon the sacrificial altar of the 
Republic for the cause for which he stood. They 
knew he sought place and power for no personal 
aggrandizement but that he might better serve his 
fellowmen. Place with him was not the end. It was 
merely the opportunity to advance the welfare of 
his country and his countrymen. 

He was a great lawyer, a great executive, a great 
orator. "Great" is a much abused word when 
applied to men, but it is appropriate when we speak 
of Lincoln. He met the demands of every relation of 
life in amplest measure. No exigency exhausted his 
power. His reserve strength was always unim- 
paired. 

He had his faults as all men have but they were 
so small when compared with his luminous virtues 
that we lose all thought of them. "Even his failings 
leaned to virtue's side." 

Fifty-seven years is but a brief period. It com- 
prehended the birth and the death of the great 
Emancipator. They were years of work, years of 
defeat and years of triumph. They spanned an 
epoch in American history of unparalleled achieve- 
ment the like of which we shall not look upon 
again. 

How like the irony of fate it seems that after he 
had led his people for four long and weary years 
through the Red Sea he should not have been per- 
mittted to enjoy the promised land. But "he lived 
until he stood in the midst of universal joy, beneath 
the outstretched wings of peace, the foremost man 
in all the world." When he fell at the post of duty 
both North and South lost their best and greatest 
friend and mingled their tears in a common sorrow. 

10 



It is given us to see but a little way into the 
future. What the morrow will bring forth it is not 
permitted us to know, but we have an abiding faith 
that tomorrow will be better than to-day and that as 
century follows century in their majestic procession 
to the ages, our country will become stronger and 
our institutions will grow in true nobility. 

The name and fame of Abraham Lincoln are a 
part of the fadeless glory of the great Republic ; yes, 
a part of the rich heritage of the race. His name 
will be cherished and honored so long as men honor 
exalted service in behalf of mankind. Yes mon- 
archies will rise and fall, republics will be born and 
die, civilizations will grow and fade away, but the 
name of Abraham Lincoln will survive as one of 
the few names which were born to immortality. 



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